


Last Sacrifice

by KayGryph



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: DA:I Trespasser, M/M, The Anchor, Trespasser Spoilers, Trespasser angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 15:41:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5380769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KayGryph/pseuds/KayGryph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Hasn’t he done enough?</i> Dorian wanted to scream. <i>Haven’t you done enough to him? Can’t you at least leave him alone to die with me holding him so I can hate him for breaking my bloody heart? Can’t you give me that much?</i></p><p>He didn’t even know anymore which god he was talking to…or if there was even anyone there to hear him.</p><p>“I <i>swear</i>,” Dorian vowed through gritted teeth, “god or no god, if Solas displaces so much as a <i>single</i> hair from his head, I’m going to <i>kill</i> him…”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> I know I have other works that need updating. I know. But this has been rattling around in my head for months, and I needed to get it out. Follows the canonical Trespasser storyline. Spoilers, obviously. Follow me on Tumblr for future updates: [ourinquisitorialness.tumblr.com](http://ourinquisitorialness.tumblr.com/).

_Let the blade pass through the flesh,_  
_Let my blood touch the ground,_  
_Let my cries touch their hearts. Let mine be the last sacrifice._

_\- Andraste 7:12_

 

_“Thalon! THALON!”_

The incantation struck the eluvian’s surface and refracted with a sound like shattering glass, showering him with a million shivering motes of violet light. When the vestiges of the spell cleared away, the mirror stood - unmarred - and Dorian’s own hysterical reflection stared back at him out of the dark glass.

“ _Festis bei umo canavarum!_ ” Tears welled from Dorian’s eyes until he was all but blind, lines of black kohl streaming down his cheeks, and still he couldn’t stop, couldn’t breathe. He flung spell after useless spell at the eluvian, but the mirror shrugged off his magic as if he were a first year pupil at the Minrathous Circle again, picking fights with the senior apprentices. Dorian cussed, louder, as he cast a nullification and sent the erratic magical energy rebounding in fractured arcs around him.

“Dorian!” The Bull’s massive hand closed around his shoulder as he readied another attempt. “Come on – get your head back on your shoulders. He’ll need it there when he’s back. _He isn’t dead._ ”

“He’ll _wish_ he was dead when I’m through with him!” Dorian wrenched out of the qunari’s grasp and wiped his sodden face on the sleeve of his surcoat. His stomach was heaving, his legs turned to water. _Damn him! DAMN HIM! You sent me ahead and then didn’t follow._ Hadn’t he once said those _exact_ words? Only this time it was Thalon who’d gone ahead…and left Dorian behind when the eluvian slammed shut behind him.

“ _Venhedis!_ ” he snapped. “Can’t you put that brutish skull to use for once and smash the bloody thing open?”

“Hey – you wanna bash the creepy-ass magic mirror to pieces, go ahead, but use your _own_ skull.”

“It’s clear Solas didn’t want us there when the Inquisitor found him…whatever his reasons, I cannot begin to guess.” Cassandra sheathed her sword and made a low noise of disgust or pain. She’d taken the full brunt of the Saarath’s final, desperate attack to protect Thalon when he’d collapsed under the Anchor’s overcharge, again. The Seeker was as tough as they came, but she couldn’t hide her limp as she moved to join Dorian or the way her face closed with pain at each step. Dorian reached automatically for the flasks at his belt, but of course, their supply of healing philters were long since spent.

“If you break the mirror, Dorian, he won’t be able to return.” Cassandra braced a hand on his shoulder with a gentle squeeze. “We have no choice but to wait…and pray the Maker delivers him back to us safely.”

“The  _Maker_ isn’t the god that concerns me,” Dorian snapped. Even as he said it, he shook his head in disbelief. _Solas -_  the man who couldn’t be convinced for all the gold in Val Royeaux to wear anything but  _rags_ , the man Varric had called _Chuckles_ and whose bedroll Sera had once filled with  _lizards - Solas,_  a rebel god out of elven legend?

It seemed  _absurd_. Impossible. Thalon had been so certain…but what if it had only been the delirium of pain making him see connections where there weren’t any? Ever since the _ataashi_ and their escape from the Darvaarad, he’d been…not all there. His glassy eyes had taken too long to focus on what was in front of him, and a feverish sheen of sweat had coated his pale skin.

“I-I’m fine,” Thalon had made himself repeat through the crippling pain, “I’m fine,” as if _saying_ it could make it true, could make the Anchor stop _killing_ him, and Dorian had wanted to grab him and shake him and shout that _he wasn’t fine_ , of course he wasn’t _bloody fine,_ and what were they _doing_  letting him sacrifice the last pieces of himself he had left for those simpering cutthroats at the Conclave? Wouldn’t Orlais and Ferelden be all too _pleased_ with themselvesif the Inquisitor met a heroic death saving them from the Qunari - a convenient end to both their current troubles. _  
_

_Hasn’t he done enough?_  Dorian wanted to scream.  _Haven’t you done enough to him? Can’t you at least leave him alone to die with me holding him so I can hate him for breaking my bloody heart? Can _’t you give me that much?_ _  
__

He didn’t even know anymore what god he was talking to…or if there was even anyone there to hear him.

Dorian shoved a hand back through his unkempt hair, feeling his shoulders trembling as Cassandra coaxed him back from the mirror. Even deactivated, the eluvian shimmered with a faint aura in the twilight…if it _was_ actually twilight and not merely an illusion. Time in this place seemed to heed no logic. Would they wait minutes for Thalon to reemerge? Hours?

“I _swear_ ,” Dorian vowed through gritted teeth, “god or no god, if Solas displaces so much as a _single_ hair from his head, I’m going to _kill_ him…”

 

* * *

 

**_:: five months earlier ::_**

_Home doesn’t feel terribly homey anymore,_ Dorian thought, as the geriatric household steward bowed and left him in the drawing room. Dorian looked around with a sense of nostalgia disguised as vague disdain. It was all exactly as he remembered – the tasteful brocade drapery and gilded portraiture, the fragrance of olibanum and incense, the goose-down pillows piled on every sofa. After the austere stone walls and fur pelts of Skyhold, the decor of the Pavus estate seemed positively garish by comparison.

 _Listen to me going on like a plebeian out of the Hundred Pillars,_ he snorted. _If they hear me like this in the capital, they’ll say I’ve gone completely savage!_ He could practically hear Thalon’s retort, the mockery thinly veiled in the elf’s voice: _The scion of House Pavus **actually** slept in a bed without hand-carved finials? Travesty!_

A twinge of all too familiar regret closed its tight fingers around Dorian’s heart, but he shook himself and shrugged it off, shoulders squared. He’d chosen this path, hadn’t he? It wouldn’t be fair to either of them if he didn’t grit his teeth now and walk its course.

Dorian draped himself over the sofa beneath the window with its white upholstery and gold-tasseled throw pillows. He grimaced. If only they hadn’t had such a small matter as a _blood ritual_ between them, the first thing he’d have told his father would be to sack the decorator. _White and gold_ , honestly. How trite and _Orlesian_.

He waited – examined his flawless nails, crossed his legs and uncrossed them – and then decided, capriciously, that he didn’t want to give his father the psychological advantage of towering over him. He stood, unlatched the window to let in the breeze off the lake, and stalked the room restlessly.

Magister Halward’s stern countenance surveyed the room from the mantle over the fireplace. He wore the embroidered waistcoat and neckcloth of a magister, hands folded in front of him in the picture of lordly magnanimity. Now as when he was a boy, Dorian couldn’t help feeling that the portrait had judged him somehow, and found him wanting. His mother’s foppish effigy hung beside her lord husband’s – sherry glass balanced astutely in hand, black tresses combed in an absurd pompadour that had no doubt been the height of fashion when the portrait was commissioned. With the singular exception of their betrothal portrait (collecting dust and mold spores in the cellars, no doubt) Halward and Aquinea had never suffered to sit in a room together long enough for an artist to capture husband and wife both.

Dorian snorted. What a _mystery_ why he’d never wanted such a marriage for himself.

Between the two portraits, there was an empty stretch of wall where the wallpaper appeared faintly singed. A short bark of laughter escaped him as he remembered. After an especially ugly row with his father, his fifteen-year-old self had gotten piss drunk and set fire to his portrait in that revolting black and purple plaideweave Aquinea had forced him to wear for an entire brutal year of his young life.

Old resentments rose like poison in his gorge. What was he _doing_ here? He should be on his way to dinner with Maevaris and her friend from Marnas Pell, the one she claimed could deliver four magisters to their cause if he could be persuaded of their loyalties. Instead, he was here on a _summons_ from his father – a summons he would’ve had every justification to ignore.

“Darling, he’s your _father_ ,” Mae had clucked at him when he’d complained yesterday over tea. “ _You’re_ the one who wanted to give him a second chance. Let him _do_ something with it.”

“ _I’m_ the one? Oh no. No part of _this_ was _my_ idea,” Dorian returned. “If not for Thalon and that Chantry shrew, I’d have been perfectly happy never to hear a word from my father ever again.”

Mae stopped mid-sip and set her cup down in its saucer to stare. “Why, Dorian!”

He blinked owlishly at her. “What? If you’d met her, you’d have called her a shrew as well…”

A slow smile crept across Mae’s face. “You _love_ him.”

Dorian felt a flush of warmth flood his chest but feigned an air of casual indifference, glancing out over the garden veranda as he swirled the tea in his cup. “I haven’t the faintest notion what you’re talking about, Maevaris...”

“Darling, your eyes _sparkled_ when you said his _name._ ” Mae arched one perfectly plucked eyebrow. “I’d heard the rumors about you and the Inquisitor, of course, but after what you said about Rilienus being the last time you’d give your heart over to a boy with a pretty smile…”

“He’s different.” The words fell out of him before he could stop himself. Dorian made a face and laughed at his own saccharine infatuation. Next he’d be making calf eyes and penning poems about the starlight tangled in his lover’s hair! He stared down into his teacup, smiling despite himself. “He’s…it’s _real_ this time. It’s…I can’t explain how I _know_ …but I do.”

The mischief in Mae’s eyes softened as she realized that, for once, Dorian meant every word. The bridge of her nose crinkled, the way it did when she smiled to brighten an entire room, and she took Dorian’s hand in both of hers and squeezed. “Oh, Dori…I _couldn’t_ be happier for you,  _amicus_ , but…darling, did you  _have_ to fall for the one man half of Thedas wants to wed and bed, while the other half waits for his head on a platter?”

In the present, Dorian felt the ache inside him again, rooted in the deep part of his heart that stayed with Thalon no matter the physical distance between them. It had been a month, at least, since his last letter from the Inquisitor. Thalon had been called north to the Free Marches, where Starkhaven and Kirkwall teetered on the brink of war even as lingering rifts continued to pour demons into the countryside. He’d warned Dorian that his correspondence would be sporadic until he returned to Skyhold…but that didn’t keep Dorian from worrying.

Why did _everyone_ in the bloody world seem to think the Inquisitor existed to solve their petty problems for them?

An elven servant – no, not a servant, a slave – entered the room carrying a platter of figs and dates and grape leaves stuffed with white goat’s cheese. Behind him tottered a darkheaded elven child bearing a carafe of rich purple wine easily as large as her head. She might have been six or seven, Dorian thought, but he’d always been horrible at guessing children’s ages.

The slave set the platter and carafe on the table without a sound and bowed to Dorian, his manner all the practiced docility and unobtrusiveness of a well-bred house slave. The child, however, was still a child – fidgeting and restless. While the older slave’s eyes were lowered, she bounced on her heels and started to scamper off, but the elf was too quick and caught her by the arm before she could escape.

“ _Ach, ti koritsi_ ,” the elf chided. “We do not turn our backs to a mage without his permission. It is not respectful.” He placed both hands on the girl’s shoulders and turned her to face Dorian with an apologetic smile and a meek bob of his head. “Forgive my daughter, Lord Dorian. She is learning.”

The girl ducked her head in shame and went to one knee, crossing both arms over her skinny chest. “ _Culpa mei, dominus_.”

Dorian felt a pang of physical discomfort. Where before he would’ve seen a pair of pointed ears and little else, now he saw Thalon half-asleep in bed beside him, mumbling incoherent Elvhen nothings as Dorian’s fingertips traced the familiar lines of his lover’s _vallaslin_. He recalled the stories Thalon had told him of his younger sister, also a mage, who used to cry at night because she was afraid of the demons in her dreams. Thalon would stay awake with her tucked against his chest until the sun rose, humming ancient elven lullabies to ward off her nightmares.

“No, it’s…there’s no harm done, honestly,” said Dorian awkwardly. “Forgive me, I don’t recall that we’ve met. Are you…new to the household?”

The elf blinked in surprise. “New? Ahh…no, my lord, I was born into your honored family’s service. Decius? Do you…remember me?”

Dorian gaped. “ _Decius?_  No…you can’t possibly be...Murcia’s boy? How _old_ are you? Sixteen?”

Decius showed all his teeth when he grinned, twin dimples at his cheeks, and Dorian saw the resemblance he’d somehow missed before. “Twenty-two, my lord. My mother passed on a few years ago, may she walk in the Maker’s Light. Your lord father was the one who generously arranged my marriage to Hestia _servus_ Vassus. Avia here is our eldest – she turned five last month.”

Dorian looked down at the little girl with a spattering of freckles across her nose and pale grey eyes that reminded him uncannily of Thalon’s, dark hair tied in the modest plait most slave women wore. She was the daughter of the son of a slave, who’d never known any life but the one she’d been born to as the property of House Pavus. Even her name, Avia, which meant _grandmother_ – likely chosen for Decius’ mother – would have been assigned at birth by the household steward, not by her own parents. Avia _servus_ Pavus – Avia, a slave of House Pavus. That was the only name she’d ever bear, and it wasn’t even her own.

Had Thalon and his family been born in the Imperium, he would have been at worst a maltreated slave and at best a scorned Liberatus – destined either way to meet a horrid end as collateral damage in some magister’s blood feud. In such a world, if Dorian had passed Thalon on the street in Qarinus or Minrathous, he would have stared straight past the love of his life without ever seeing him.

As if he hadn’t been there at all.

“Lord Dorian?” Avia hesitated, looking to her father for permission. When he nodded, Avia fiddled nervously with her plaited hair and rocked back and forth on her heels. “Did you _truly_ meet the Inquisitor, Lord Dorian? Is it…is it _really_ true that’s he’s…?”

“An elf?” Dorian smiled. “Yes, it’s really true. He looks very much like you…only a deal _older_ , of course.” The girl’s gleeful giggle warmed Dorian’s heart. “He even taught me a few words in Elvhen, you know. _Aneth ara._ That’s _hello_.”

“ _Aneth ara,_ ” Avia parroted eagerly back, but a pale look of horror crossed Decius’ face and he snatched the girl protectively back behind him as though he feared Dorian were a serpent coiled to strike.

“You mustn’t repeat such things, Avia,” he mumbled, avoiding eye contact with Dorian. “Those are words for other people. They don’t mean anything to us. Do you hear me?”

Too late, Dorian realized he’d taught the unwitting child words in a language that would get her flogged, or worse, if a magister overheard her utter them in the street. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble for you. Please, forget I said anything.”

Decius bowed, hands gripping his daughter’s shoulders. “ _Culpa mei est, dominus._ We’ve disturbed your peace enough. Come, Avia.”

Avia dragged her feet, confused grey eyes thrown over her shoulder at Dorian. “But…Lord Dorian said–”

“Decius.”

Dorian stiffened and turned. In the door to the drawing room stood Magister Halward, hands folded over his waistcoat in an exact mimicry of his portrait on the wall. He looked… _older_ than Dorian remembered. Halward cleared his throat and motioned with a hand. It was the slave he addressed, but his eyes were for Dorian.

“Leave us, please. My son and I have much to discuss.”


End file.
